I'm a procurement manager at a mid-sized mining services company. I've managed our crushing equipment budget—roughly $400,000 a year—for six years, negotiated with dozens of vendors, and documented every order in our cost tracking system. Below are the FLSmidth questions I get asked the most, plus a couple I had to learn the hard way.
FLSmidth is one of the larger suppliers of mining and cement equipment in the world. Their product line covers pretty much the whole rock-processing loop: crushers (the Raptor cone series included), apron feeders, screens, mills, gearboxes, and the automation systems that tie everything together. If you're in cement, you'll see their name on kilns, coolers, and grinding systems. If you're in hard-rock mining, it's their crushing and grinding equipment that gets the attention.
They also sell service contracts and process optimization work. Based in Copenhagen, they operate in roughly 60 countries as of their latest annual reporting, though that footprint shifts as they adjust the regional portfolio. From a procurement perspective, what matters is engineering depth, not just hardware. When a crusher underperforms, you want a process engineer on the phone—not a salesperson reading a spec sheet.
FLSmidth has a real presence in France, primarily serving the cement and minerals industries. The France team handles engineering support, service contracts, and spare parts distribution for local customers. In theory, that means shorter lead times. In practice, "local presence" and "local parts stock" are two different things.
I once asked in a meeting, "Can you supply parts from the French hub?" They heard, "Quote me a parts kit." Result: the parts sat in their approval workflow for two weeks because the order wasn't triggered. Honest communication fix: ask directly, "Which parts does FLSmidth France stock locally, and what's the lead time for the rest?" Get it in writing.
The clearing stroke is the vertical distance the crusher head moves when the hydraulic clearing system is activated. It's measured in millimeters, and it's your escape hatch for a jammed chamber. The Raptor series was designed with a fairly generous clearing stroke—depending on the model, you're looking at roughly 75 to 120 mm. I'd need to check the current datasheet for the model you're considering to give you the exact figure (as of January 2025, the Raptor line is still in FLSmidth's portfolio, but specs do evolve).
Why care? A blocked crusher is a stopped plant. A larger stroke opens the chamber wider, so wedged material has a much better chance of falling through in one clearing cycle. And when you're losing production by the minute, that matters a lot more than the stroke spec on paper.
Depends on which drift theory you mean. In geology, it's about continental drift—the slow movement of tectonic plates over millions of years, which explains where many ore deposits sit today. That's an exploration topic.
In a crushing plant, "drift" usually means calibration drift. Your crusher's setting slowly moves off spec because hydraulic temperatures change, accumulator pressures fluctuate, and liners wear. I've seen closed-side settings drift 4–5 mm from setpoint without anyone noticing, until the downstream screen started rejecting out-of-spec material. Calibration drift sounds too minor to matter, but it accumulates. A millimeter or two off changes your product size distribution, which affects recovery rates downstream. The fix is boring: regular setting checks. Looking back, I should've implemented that routine years earlier—we chased a "mystery" quality issue for months that was basically drift.
Divide the total lifecycle cost by the total tons processed. Not the purchase price by the brochure capacity. In 2023, I compared two crusher quotes for a project. The cheaper unit was 15% lower upfront, but once I divided total costs—delivery, installation, civil work, expected wear parts, energy draw, downtime risk—the gap shrunk to about $0.03 per ton. Doesn't sound huge, but at 2 million tons a year, that's $60,000 annually.
The most uncertain line item is energy. Vendors give you an estimated power draw, but ore hardness varies. A 10% swing in hardness can erase a calculated efficiency edge. My policy now: get the power draw assumptions in writing, then validate with your own ore samples.
Sometimes. Depends on what's actually in the package. I compared a complete FLSmidth solution against a piecemeal approach last year. The package was roughly 8% more expensive upfront, but after factoring in integration engineering, commissioning support, and a single point of accountability, the real premium was around 2.5%. That I'd gladly pay.
Quality perception counts too. Our operations team treats a Raptor with proper engineering documentation differently than a budget crusher with minimal traceability. That "free setup" offer from another vendor? It ended up costing more in hidden integration work. You don't buy a cone crusher every week, so the premium for a proven, well-documented machine is easier to justify—assuming the scope is real. I've seen quotes where "full package" still excluded wear parts for the first year, and the add-on cost brought the total above the competitor's number.
If you searched "simparica" and landed here, you're probably looking for a veterinary medication. This page won't help with that. But search engines can be weird—this article covers FLSmidth, which makes the Raptor cone crusher, whose clearing stroke is measured in millimeters.
For the mining and cement folks: verify the exact Raptor clearing stroke on the current datasheet, ask FLSmidth France what's stocked locally, and treat every vendor's power draw estimate as an estimate. As for simparica—your dog will have to find their flea treatment elsewhere.
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